Level 90 Boost on the PTR
The Level 90 Boost process is now enabled on the PTR for testing, but it appears the final step of the process isn't working yet.

Garrosh Heirlooms and Bonus RollsManyplayers have asked about if it is possible to get a heirloom from a bonus roll, but @olandgren let us know that you won't get heirlooms from a bonus roll.

Dampening Duration Change

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

After some additional discussion, we've decided to make this change (5 minute Dampening) only apply in the 2v2 bracket. Dampening will remain at 10 minutes in 3v3 and 5v5 arenas.

Lower Level Battleground Balance

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I had originally written here how World of Warcraft is a really big game, and while we know there are a lot of different types of activities outside of max-level content that people enjoy, we're not always going to be able to focus on each of them all of time. But it wasn't written particularly well and I feel like my points were probably fairly obvious to everyone.

Anyway, in short: we will be address some low-level PvP balance in Warlords.

First off it's worth noting the item squish. While individual brackets might not see a huge change, certainly the power curve between levels will be a smoother one. It'll have a bigger impact on world PvP as it'll be more like it was in vanilla, and relative power between characters won't see these dramatic swings. Back in the day even if you were 10, 20 or even 30 levels lower than someone else, you still had some shot at getting away, if not actually killing them. Of course as people start gearing up again that disparity will grow in the outdoor world, but it should be fun to get back to a smoother character power curve, and it'll at least always hold true for sub level-100 gank attempts.

We recognize that low-level PvP balance just hasn't gotten the attention it needs, and that's largely due to us having to focus our attention on content that the majority of players focus their attention (e.g. max level). In Warlords we're going to be doing a bit of ability shuffling (read: deleting) which is going to result in the need to smooth out the ability-acquisition pacing (when you get a new ability and at what level), and we'll also be taking a pass on low-level balance at the same time. It's difficult because of the spread of people across all levels and ensuring every ability of every spec at any one particular level vs. another character/level/spec of another level have parity. Low level brackets just inherently bring a measure of un-balance with them due to the possible level difference, which is necessary to ensure they can fill up with enough players. Our goal is primarily to smooth out the outlying abilities - and this is hand-in-hand with the item squish - to ensure the base damage of all the abilities before scaling is appropriate. There are just some obvious tuning problems right now that we'll take care of, and then as much finer tuning as we can manage. We'll be looking for feedback during beta.

I thought base damage was being abolished entirely, in favor of pure scaling. At least this was what I have heard elsewhere many times before this.
There has to be something to scale from.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Character / ItemsWill Legendary Cloaks be relevant in WoD? I hope so, I'm a little late to the party and don't want to get rid of it.
Legendary cloaks will not stay relevant in WoD. You still have time to get plenty of use out of it. (Celestalon)This makes me a sad panda.
Think about what it would do during WoD. It would feel terrible to need to go back and do MoP raids in order to get them. (Celestalon)

Artcan you elaborate on these reasons please?some really dislike fist weapons for the same reason as people hating guns.
Bow/gun thing was based 100% on audio issues (I know, weird "solution"), not visual/aesthetics. (Dave_Maldo)

Any chance of seeing strength fist weapons? My warrior would prefer to strap spikes to his fists and punch people.
That would be awesome indeed. (Dave_Maldo)

The item for Hunters pets Kibler's Bits should last alot longer than a mere 5 minutes. Thank you!
There was a push to keep class pet sizes "reasonable" (Monstrous Bite T_T) but 5 mins DOES seems short. Will try to look into! (Dave_Maldo)

I know lots of mages who would give their mouse arm for the broom to be permanent.
Was discussed for Enchanting once or twice, but we're good w/ where it is, for now! (Dave_Maldo)

Any chance of Brazilian Carnival become a world event, with music and allegorical cars to show off each race of the game?
That was proposed back when we were still making new, full-blown holiday events (Brewfest etc.). Who knows; maybe one day! (Dave_Maldo)

is there any chances for adding "White" items become transmogrifiable and even legendaries like illidan's blades?
Very unlikely for the former; it's how many items they don't want unlocked are locked. Less so for the latter. (Dave_Maldo)

out of interest, why? What do you or we gain by this lockout mechanism for white items? struggling to think of any.
The debate revolves around preserving a certain look & feel in the world/player pop for "real" gear (vs fun temp costume). (Dave_Maldo)

Any chance for actual spectacles, such as the ones Lord Crowley wears, to be added to the game? As a transmog item maybe?
Those totally SHOULD have been in the game by now, yeah. We even discussed SFK or on the shore or... anyhow, yes. Yes. (Dave_Maldo)

Will we ever be able to dye our gear? This is something I've wanted since we got transmorgryph.
Maybe one day? Not planned for anytime soon though, sorry. (Dave_Maldo)

Old vid, but still applies. -PLEASE- look into it, it has been years now.Iirc noggen scale down now too.
Art mods wep sizes by type, both in-hand & while sheathed, on a per race/gender basis in order to handle a HUGE range of assets. (Dave_Maldo)
Art does this to get weps in-hand as big as possible while still fitting theme and not creating terrible sheathed clipping issues. (Dave_Maldo)

Any chance of a moving sun and real-time shadows?
The tech peeps love working on stuff like that when performance permits. Maybe one day! (Dave_Maldo)

With the new models in WoD, will it mean the end of tabards poking through capes when jumping etc?
It'd be cool. Some clipping (in general) is practically unavoidable but I imagine they'll clean up as much as they can! (Dave_Maldo)

If your going to introduce the ability to re color gear i hope its kept in the "theme" of the game. I remember when you could dye armor in Everquest is was kinda silly and detracted from the overall feel.

Does it really matter that you later can buy 90s when you have to lvl up 10 more levels.

The main reason I think it's a bad idea is if buying your way to 90 becomes the norm in this game when you roll an alt.. what happens to the 1-90 content? What happens to 1-90 dungeon queues? Let's say 60% of people buy the boost when they start an alt, that means 60% less people are running 1-90 dungeons. What impact will this have on dungeon queues? It's already struggle to find healers and tanks for random dungeons. What will it be like when less people are running them?

I just wish they'd make it easier to level up 1-90. Allow players to buy the full heirloom set and reduce the XP required in Wrath, Cata and Mist zones. I'd much rather players have an easier journey levelling up than get a level 90 gifted to them in seconds.

I plainly don't give a shit on this whole free level 90 deal. A lot of people I know at the beginning of MoP were bitching and moaning endlessly about having to level all 9 of their alts to level 90 as well and complaining about how its too much of Blizz to ask of the player to have to do that. Yet now people are coming out of the woodwork and complaining that this is going to turn the game into pay to win and enforce catering to the casual.

None of that even matters to me, all I know is that philosophy behind the development stands in good reasoning and I'm not going to let anyone else's opinion affect this.

Leveling from 1-90 is not 70% of the game, if at all, currently, its 10% of the game, when WoD comes out, it'll be 9% of the game. If you want to see numbers, please take a look at your /played time while at level max level and compare it to your times spent at each level while leveling and tell me that, even while added up, your time spent leveling is equal to or greater than your time spent at max level.

The main reason I think it's a bad idea is if buying your way to 90 becomes the norm in this game when you roll an alt.. what happens to the 1-90 content? What happens to 1-90 dungeon queues? Let's say 60% of people buy the boost when they start an alt, that means 60% less people are running 1-90 dungeons. What impact will this have on dungeon queues? It's already struggle to find healers and tanks for random dungeons. What will it be like when less people are running them?

I just wish they'd make it easier to level up 1-90. Allow players to buy the full heirloom set and reduce the XP required in Wrath, Cata and Mist zones. I'd much rather players have an easier journey levelling up than get a level 90 gifted to them in seconds.

Guess it is a good thing you are not required to run dungeons to level to 90 then huh?

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Somebody

I plainly don't give a shit on this whole free level 90 deal. A lot of people I know at the beginning of MoP were bitching and moaning endlessly about having to level all 9 of their alts to level 90 as well and complaining about how its too much of Blizz to ask of the player to have to do that. Yet now people are coming out of the woodwork and complaining that this is going to turn the game into pay to win and enforce catering to the casual.

None of that even matters to me, all I know is that philosophy behind the development stands in good reasoning and I'm not going to let anyone else's opinion affect this.

Leveling from 1-90 is not 70% of the game, if at all, currently, its 10% of the game, when WoD comes out, it'll be 9% of the game. If you want to see numbers, please take a look at your /played time while at level max level and compare it to your times spent at each level while leveling and tell me that, even while added up, your time spent leveling is equal to or greater than your time spent at max level.

The main reason I think it's a bad idea is if buying your way to 90 becomes the norm in this game when you roll an alt.. what happens to the 1-90 content? What happens to 1-90 dungeon queues? Let's say 60% of people buy the boost when they start an alt, that means 60% less people are running 1-90 dungeons. What impact will this have on dungeon queues? It's already struggle to find healers and tanks for random dungeons. What will it be like when less people are running them?

I just wish they'd make it easier to level up 1-90. Allow players to buy the full heirloom set and reduce the XP required in Wrath, Cata and Mist zones. I'd much rather players have an easier journey levelling up than get a level 90 gifted to them in seconds.

You have a point. Has a been a while since i level as a dps, atm i doing recruit and always do dungeon as a healer and dps/tank and dps so i dont have problems with que times. Its annying me that people say its pay to win thou.

And they can't win. People have been demanding level boosts for ages, and apparently RAF isn't good enough for a lot of people so they bot or use 3rd party sites. Blizzard tries to cater to them a bit... and people complain.

/sigh

Anyway. Love the fact someone seems disappointed we won't be using our legendary cloaks in WoD. I'm guessing someone is new to the concept of expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Collected

The main reason I think it's a bad idea is if buying your way to 90 becomes the norm in this game when you roll an alt.. what happens to the 1-90 content? What happens to 1-90 dungeon queues?

Nothing will happen. People will still level alts, only a small number of people will buy more then one boost to 90.

If anything the number of impatient jerks might drop slightly.

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Originally Posted by cuafpr

thats kinda cool idea....

Kind of agree, actually. Not a full-power scaled down Legendary, of course, but one on par with current heirloom weapons. Maybe just having it (or rather, the achievement) unlocks an heirloom version of it in the new heirloom tab they were mentioning they were working on?

Gives people a reason to farm for the legendaries without imbalancing the game. Plus it might allow people to transmog their gear with them!

Guess it is a good thing you are not required to run dungeons to level to 90 then huh?

No you're not required but they are an invaluable way of learning how to play your class in a group.

That's another reason why I dislike this instant level 90 ding idea... you'll have people running WoD dungeons who have no idea how to play their class in a dungeon. That means healers with access to a full set of spells but no idea of which heal to use in which situation.. or when to use heals and when to hold back due to threat. Tanks who will have no idea how to correct a bad pull. Lovely.

It scares me to think there will be players rolling healers & tanks for the very first time and immediately entering WoD dungeons as their first ever dungeon. Better get used to lots of wipes.. because it won't be pretty.

It scares me to think there will be players rolling healers & tanks for the very first time and immediately entering WoD dungeons as their first ever dungeon. Better get used to lots of wipes.. because it won't be pretty.

To be fair it might happen sometimes. But it won't be as common as that. Plus there are plenty of players who've played long term who still haven't got a clue how to play!

"Legendary cloaks will not stay relevant in WoD. You still have time to get plenty of use out of it. (Celestalon)"
On my realm people say don't waste time to get the cloak now, because after you got it there will be not so much time to use.
I hope in WOD they make a correct legendary weapon what can we transmog...
I want my cloak transmog so badly because it didn't fit to my transmog gear... I didn't use it most of the time.

I don't understand why blizzard destroyed the tank gameplay completely... waiting hours for a new tank in RF it shows everything...

Also please implement dyes so, so we can get access to old lfr variations of gear (Dragon Soul now and MoP when WoD is released) or have new hc (or normal/flex/valor) gear match current outfit. Perhaps we even can get access to existing but unused color variations of gear. Transmogrification has done much more for the game than I thought it would and is really awesome. Perhaps even make transmogrification cheaper so we change more often.